Bible Study The Christian Church is the Prostitute Bride of Jesus Christ

[Jim Parker]

Strangely enough the RSV omitted exactly what you have stated. "Of His flesh, and of His bones" is missing from verse 30 in all the modern versions, but not from the Douay-Rheims Bible!

"Of His flesh and bones" is found in the Textus Receptus and, therefore in the KJV and NKJV. It is also found in the Reina-Valera 1960, Webster's Bible, Hebrew Names Version, and the Latin Vulgate.
The Douay-Rheims Bible is a translation of the Latin Vulgate (late 4th-early 5th century) into English. It is contemporary with the Tyndale and KJ translations. (The current edition of the Douay-Rheims has been revised and is in modern English.)

The Gnostics corrupted the Bible, and therefore you have a very important clause missing above.

Actually, the Gnostics had absolutely nothing to do with it. The early Gnostic writings had been thoroughly rejected as heretical well before Jerome's (et.al.) translation of the Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew into Latin.

The versions without that phrase are based on older manuscripts which have been discovered since the "Dead Sea Scrolls" in 1947. They include manuscripts and fragments dating from around 900 AD back to within a generation of the original texts.

The Textus Receptus is based on an almost-complete 12th century Byzantine manuscript. Erasmus had to re-translate portions of the Revelation from Jerome's Latin Vulgate back into Greek to complete his work.

The key, in my opinion, is that Paul stated that, as a man and woman become "one flesh" in marriage, so the Church becomes "one flesh" with Christ as His bride. It is by that union, I understand we have eternal life. Being one flesh with Christ, and abiding in Him, we have His eternal life.

iakov the fool

 

[Jim Parker]

But it makes me think that Israel is the Bride of Christ.

They are described in that manner in the OT.
Isa 54:5 (RSV) For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.
Jer 31:31-32 (RSV) Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.
2Co 11:2 (RSV) I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband.
Eph 5:25-27 (RSV) Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
That is a description of a bride being presented to her husband at a wedding ceremony.
It seems to me that all who believe, including believing Israel, are the Church and the Church is the bride of Christ.

iakov the fool